The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

"I aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit it
in the stomach."

Upton Sinclair, on the public reaction to his
book The Jungle

"Muckraker" is the term Theodore Roosevelt used to label writers and journalists
of the early 1900s who wrote to expose, and ultimately reform, the ills
and corruptions that plagued many of the nation's public and private institutions.
In The Jungle, author Upton Sinclair took aim at the brutalization and
exploitation of workingmen in a Chicago meat-packing house; however, it
was the filthy conditions, described in nauseating detail—and the threat
they posed to meat consumers—that caused a public furor.

Public reaction to the book was a major factor in the passage of the 1907
Meat Inspection Act, which established a system of meat inspection that
endured for nearly a century. In July 1996, the federal government announced
new rules requiring more scientifically advanced methods of meat inspection.

The Records of the Department of Agriculture, which administered the Meat
Inspection Act of 1907, are preserved by the National Archives and Records
Administration.

Robert E. Peary
winter 1898–99
upon losing toes to frostbite during his
first attempt to reach the North Pole

The North Pole is the northernmost point of the earth.
It is the point at which the imaginary line of the earth's axis
intersects the planet. It is at this point that all time zones
converge, and sunrises and sunsets are annual events. Located
in the middle of the ice-covered Arctic Ocean more than 400 miles
from land, it has one of the most hostile climates on the planet.
Being the first person to reach the North Pole was the driving
obsession of explorer Robert E. Peary.

Peary claimed that he and his party reached the North Pole
on April 6, 1909, during his third attempt. Doubt was cast
on this claim almost immediately. To this day, some experts
maintain that Peary may have missed the pole by as much as
50 miles, while others maintain that he did reach it. Individuals
seeking to prove or disprove Peary's claim are drawn to his
own records of his polar explorations, which are preserved
by the National Archives and Records Administration. The papers
of Robert E. Peary, including field notebooks, diaries, photographs,
and maps relating to his arctic explorations were donated
to the National Archives by the Peary family.

"We make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following
basis: Make war together, make peace together."

Zimmermann Telegram
January 16, 1917

On January 16, 1917, in the midst of the European war that would later
be known as World War I, German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent
an encoded message to be conveyed to the President of Mexico, proposing
a military alliance against the United States. In return for Mexican support
in the war, Germany would help Mexico regain New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona
from the United States. The British intercepted the secret message, deciphered
it, and turned it over to the U.S. government.

Public revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram in the United States on March
1, 1917, came at a crucial moment. By the spring of 1917, German submarine
warfare had killed nearly 200 Americans. The United States had recently
broken diplomatic relations with Germany in response to the German decision
to begin unrestricted submarine warfare. The Zimmermann Telegram further
inflamed U.S. public opinion against Germany, particularly in the West
and Southwest. On April 2 President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare
war against Germany and the Central Powers; on April 6, 1917, Congress
complied.

The Zimmermann Telegram is part of the Central File records of the Department
of State preserved at the National Archives and Records Administration.